Doing What Pleases God — and the Consequences

A recent post over at Pyromaniacs includes an insightful list, from scripture, of the types of things that may result from doing what pleases God:

• Getting murdered by your brother for honoring God in faith  (Genesis 4:1-8)
• Being hated by the most powerful in the land for telling God’s truth (1 Kings 18:17, 22:8)
• Having people run away from your preaching (i.e. a small congregation) because you preach the truth straight (2 Tim. 4:2-4)
• Being out of sync with your spouse for remaining faithful to God  (Job 2:9)
• Being framed, slandered, and killed for remaining loyal to your family  (1 Kings 21)
• Seeing your good name destroyed because of your love for Christ  (Matt. 5:11)
• Having co-workers start a vicious slander-and-ouster campaign because of your godly excellence  (Daniel 6:4-5)
• Being abused, even physically, for doing right in God’s eyes  (1 Peter 2:20, 3:14, 3:17, 4:19)
• Enduring a life of persecution, deprivation, and temporal misery  (Hebrews 11:36-38)

As Dan Phillips said, these are only a sampling.  A few more scriptures I would add to the above:

• Being out of sync with your spouse for remaining faithful to God   — also 1 Samuel 25, and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16
• Being abused, even physically, for doing right in God’s eyes  — also Genesis 37, and Jeremiah 32:2-3, 38:6

These are great reminders, that doing what’s right and following God does not always mean great material blessings in this world.  Yet the Christian has the true happiness that goes beyond our circumstances in this world, as J.C. Ryle also describes (Practical Religion, chapter 10: Happiness):

Give a man a sensible interest in Christ, and he will be happy “in spite of abounding public calamities.” The government of his country may be thrown into confusion, rebellion and disorder may turn everything upside down, laws may be trampled underfoot; justice and equity may be outraged; liberty may be cast down to the ground; might may prevail over right: but still his heart will not fail. He will remember that the kingdom of Christ will one day be set up. He will say, like the old minister who lived throughout the turmoil of the French revolution: “It is all right: it will be well with the righteous.”